REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Pediatric Oncology
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1621620
Impact of Paediatric Anaesthesia Management on Cancer Outcomes in Children -a narra:ve review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- 2University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- 3The Kids Research Institute Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia
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Importance: The relationship between anaesthetic technique and paediatric oncological outcomes is an emerging field of interest. With significant improvements in childhood cancer survival in recent decades, there is an increased focus on optimizing the quality of survival and reducing the incidence of metastasis and recurrence. The aim of this narrative review article is to investigate and consolidate the current available evidence assessing the immunomodulatory effects of anaesthesia in the paediatric oncology population.Observations: There is mounting evidence supporting an association between perioperative interventions such as anaesthetic techniques and oncological outcomes in adults. Research, predominately based on laboratory studies and retrospective studies in the adult population, has explored this association, often with mixed results. Some studies found agents such as volatile anaesthetics promoted cancer cell dissemination or recurrence by altering tumour microenvironments, while others argued that the influence of anaesthesia on cancer recurrence is minimal and emphasized the need for further, more targeted research. Conclusions and Relevance: The significant differences which exist between adult and paediatric oncology populations, in terms of immune system maturation, underlying malignancy, treatment regimens, and frequency of anaesthetic exposure, present a further challenge in applying the findings from the current, mainly adult based evidence to paediatric anaesthesia practice. Evidence suggests a trend towards an effect rather than a definitive answer. A large, high quality randomized, controlled trial is warranted to further our understanding of the effects of anaesthesia in paediatric oncology patients.
Keywords: Paediatric, Child, Cancer, outcomes, anaesthesia, Anaesthesia - general
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fenelon, Hauser and Von Ungern-Sternberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Britta S Von Ungern-Sternberg, University of Western Australia, Perth, 6009, Western Australia, Australia
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